


The Helmsman's Calling

by phantomreviewer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sea is wine-dark, and has waves of blood. Or perhaps his blood has turned to fine wine. Grantaire knows not which any more. But there is something red on his shirt regardless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Helmsman's Calling

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any inconsistency of character (or it just being plain weak!) I am reading the brick (but quite slowly) so most of the characterisation is coming from the film and the 'Dream Cast In Concert', which has been seared into my brain since I was old enough to work a VHS.
> 
> (And perhaps its not as dark as the summary made it sound, sorry to disappoint.)

The darkness is all encompassing, but the peace that it brings is sublime. The ever pressing black cools his brow against the fiery light of the day. The darkness causes the natural rhythm of motion to sway, and for the briefest of periods Grantaire feels as though he is on a ship set to Dover, that he has been sent away for his own good and protection and the wind is carding through his curls like a sigh. Except it isn’t the wind in his hair at all, but instead delicate, strong, methodical fingers.

Grantaire desperately wants to open his eyes and to turn his head towards Gomorrah but then the figures would turn to salt in his hair. And he so desperately does not want that.

The rocking motion is lessening now, as though he has come to harbour and he hears a voice say his name, quietly but persistently. He recognises the voice, opens his eyes.

Joly’s fingers go from his hair and instinctively Grantaire knows that now it is safe for him to turn his head.

The discomfort strikes him first as his turns himself into a sitting position- and why is he laid against the steps beyond the Musain?- and he winces while Joly reciprocates the action. This isn’t the pain of the bottle, this isn’t the green fairy having left him for greater pleasures. When Grantaire looks down there is a disconcerting stain of blood over his shirt. And a rip in the fabric were his cockade had been.

Quizzically he looks to Joly as he attempts to piece this puzzle together himself.

“We are sorry Grantaire, although we noted your absence we didn’t think to be concerned as to why you hadn’t returned to the meeting.”

Joly is worrying his hands together, and the action is making Grantaire’s head hurt. He frowns at Joly to continue.

“It can’t have been more than half an hour, and I do not think that you are too seriously hurt. You left with your friend, and I’m afraid that the fact you had not joined us was only highlighted by Courfeyrac’s commenting that Enjolras’ latest plans had the approval of the cynic. And then we realised. It is a good job that I elected to look for you beyond the Musain as although it is not serious you have certainly been injured. What happened Grantaire?”

Although there is a slight haze hovering over his memory of the event Grantaire knows the basics enough to scoff at Joly, rolling his eyes.

“That man knows me, Joly, can it be such a surprise that he found me distasteful? I regard you and our companions of de l’abc as my friends and you find me distasteful. So while Enjolras cuts me down with words, Foubert must have knocked me down with his fist. I can barely feel it.”

It is a lie, and Joly knows it, and yet he doesn’t challenge it and instead Grantaire accepts the offers hand pulling himself upwards into full mast. The world spins alarmingly.

“But even Bahorel refrains from knocking you down, so there must have been a reason.”

Grantaire goes as if to shake his head, but the world has not yet stopped spinning, so he turns the gesture into a shrug and accepts Joly’s arm.

“I don’t know why, perhaps the arrangement of the features of my face offended him.”

Despite the alarming angle of the Musain across the sky, and Joly’s steady hold being all keeping Grantaire from a re-acquaintance with the ground the fog of his mind has passed, and he remembers exactly how he had come too with a bloody and broken nose.

Enjolras had not taken kindly to his latest judgement on their likelihood of success, and his voice was only a fraction above freezing. Grantaire could have used it to chill his wine.

“While your input may well be amusing to yourself, your contempt for us and our cause does you no favours among us. Do cease Grantaire.”

There was something in Enjolras’ demeanour that made Grantaire drop his gaze and with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around the bottle stem flick at the cockade attached to his lapel. Feuilly had had brought a handful with them, and in a moment of drunken enthusiasm, and for seeing the flash of something other than sheer aversion in Enjolras’ eyes he had affixed one to his personage. It would have been too obvious to remove it following a quibble with Enjolras.

He only looked up when a familiar voice entered the Musain. Although it was not the most frequented of Parisian haunts it was known enough in its turn, and Grantaire knew of many cafés of worse quality frequented around the city.

“Grantaire!”

It is Foubert, who Grantaire knows from old and who he has not seen for many months. Foubert permanently has an ugly scowl across his features, and his hair is already greying out of premature age, but he will tolerate Grantaire with more grace than he is used to. And he is never one to shy away from the absinthe. 

“It is you Grantaire, who ever would have thought it? You have not joined us for a game of dominos or the best wine Paris has to offer for the longest time. We perhaps wondered whether you were coming down with some illness, although from the looks of it-”

Grantaire feels his face flame, although the words of his companion can bear no tidings to his own thoughts. Enjolras is not the only one of their table who looks angry, and the scrape of Grantaire’s chair cuts the silence like a knife.

“Foubert, shall we?”

Grantaire half expects his new found companion to decline the unspoken plea, and perhaps even to take his unclaimed seat at the table of the ABC, but after a fraction of a moment- when Foubert’s eyes have cast themselves from the ABC, to Grantaire’s chest to his face- he nods and pushes the door open again.

The babble of continued conversation the moment that Grantaire steps away hurts, but he cannot deny that it was expected. He can help the cause; he can help it by leaving it seems.

“You know what is being said Grantaire, why do you sully yourself with such drinking companions?”

It is colder outside the Musain than Grantaire expected, and he shivers, glad for the bottle that he still held, and raises it to his lips like a prayer.

“They make for interesting conversation, especially when one is to an extent drunk. And I am so rarely sober in their company.”

Foubert laughs, and plucks at the cockade on his chest.

“No. I suppose one would have not to be.”

They are still within sight of the Musain, and Grantaire has to admit to himself that he has no idea what he is going to do with either himself or his new companion. The silence that they have fallen into is rough, but they both have wine on their side. He knows that there is no likelihood of returning to the café with Foubert still in tow, and the man seems insistent on speaking with Grantaire, although they’d never spoken much when they had used to drink together.

“They are too fair,” Foubert finally declares, breath huffing clouds in the cold air by Grantaire’s face, “Especially, the one who glared as I entered the café. Surely he is too fair to be a true male?”

And while many of the ABC had glanced at the doorway in anger, for they all felt a certain claim to the old café, that description could only be for one man.

“He is as Apollo,” Grantaire responds, as though that were answer enough. 

And it is. 

Except.

Foubert raises an eyebrow and looks behind him towards the café were Grantaire suspects that plans are going far more smoothly than they would be with him in the building.

“Does that make you his Hyacinthus then Grantaire?”

Grantaire swallows slowly, and then raises the bottle to his lips again, draining the remaining liquid with little grace. Although he shakes his head Foubert frowns, eyes deepening in his face.

“You are surely not-”

Foubert shakes his head and makes another grab for the cockade attached to Grantaire’s chest, and Grantaire takes a step backwards.

“You wear this as a token?”

Grantaire wishes that his wine were not empty, turning his sharp thoughts into words was always a processes softened by the contents at the bottom of a bottle.

“I wear what I like Foubert, whether it be for myself or for another. It is no little hurt, and of no great shame. Although little pride.”

Foubert’s jaw has dropped enough to Grantaire to notice that the man has one less tooth than when they’d last met.

“I had suspected that you may had changed Grantaire. Grantaire the drunken fool, but to be so affected by such a group of insignificance and an idolatrous Apollo of no worth. You-”

But perhaps there is enough of the alcohol within him, as while he has no self-worth left to defend himself from insults he knows as true, he can’t help but bring himself to Enjolras’ defence. Perhaps it is an unconscious act drummed into him by prolonged contact, just as he feels the tugging of illness without a drink, he feels a compulsion to Enjolras which contradicts all reason and self-preservation.

“Even you ought to know better than to speak that way of your betters.”

For if Enjolras is Grantaire’s better, as he most certainly is, then he must be leagues above Foubert.

And then Foubert has Grantaire by the lapel, and Grantaire can feel the cockade pulled away before the punch lands.

It sends him skidding to the ground, and he is grateful both for the lull of the alcohol which he knows must be stemming the pain as well as dragging him towards sleep, and the retreating footsteps of Foubert before the boards the ship set for the darkness.

Grantaire’s world stops spinning, and suddenly he is again facing Joly who takes one of his arms and wraps it around Grantaire’s waist.

“Come, my friend. Back with me to the others.”

And Grantaire has little choice but to obey.

Joly’s body next to his is warm, as is the inside of the Musain, but stone steps are not known for the warmth that they contain, especially when one has had little choice in the matter.

He is deposited back into the seat that he had left like the drunk that he is.

When Grantaire looks up it is unwillingly, and a sudden feeling of shame has been brought down upon his shoulders.

It is evident from the looks on his fellow companions’ faces that they had either not expected Joly to return with Grantaire at all or not expected for Grantaire to have changed in the course of less than an hour’s difference.

In unspoken apology there is a glass pushed in front of Grantaire, which is not allowed to run dry for the duration of the meeting. He doesn’t know who pushed it in front of him to begin with.

“Grantaire?”

He has looked back to the table, clasping the glass in both hands, he doesn’t know who asked the obvious question, but he only laughs, looking up and shaking his curls briefly.

“I think I look prettier now.”

And that is all that he wishes to say on the matter. He knows that it will not be however, and he idly listens to Joly expounding on his narrative and his broken nose.

The meeting continues much as they ever had, although if Grantaire is quieter than normal no one comments on it. It may even be a relief for them to realise that he is possible of sitting in silence while also being fully conscious.

The ache in his face is becoming worse, but Joly assures him that it will heal naturally should he only allow it to rest. He takes up another mouthful of wine as self-medication.

Enjolras, although having not directly addressed Grantaire since he re-entered the café at Joly’s side catches his eye as Jehan speaks. While Grantaire fights the urge to look away from Apollo’s eyes -as though they may burn his tragic, broken visage- Enjolras looks down to the tear in Grantaire’s lapel and there is the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

Perhaps he thinks that Grantaire has, in a roundabout manner, been injured for the revolution. That he showed some belief in what they others hoped to achieve. That the slight of having his cockade ripped from his breast brought him some passion for Enjolras’ cause. At least he knows that had Grantaire removed the cockade himself he would not have returned to the Musain. But he has not grasped the truth, and Grantaire does not wish him to.

Joly is advising him to leave them, to go to his rooms and take his rest, but it is only a half-hearted attempt, and the hand refilling Grantaire’s glass has been Joly’s own on occasion.

Grantaire knows that he won’t be leaving the company of the young revolutionaries, by this point his knows that he has chosen the ABC above all others, and to leave them would only be to be alone. Alone in body, as opposed to alone in mind.

There are more pats to his shoulder when his friends leave than he is used to receiving, and he wonders, not for the first time what it would be like if he could believe in their revolution.

Too soon when Grantaire looks up there is only Joly and Enjolras remaining, sitting beside him engaged deep in discussion. He catches the word concussion from Joly and turns back to his wine, he somehow doubts that it will continue self-replenishing when all of his companions have left. He is not yet that drunk.

Or perhaps he is, as although he felt Joly’s hand brush against his forehead for a moment he did not register the man leaving, and when he looks up into the darkened café interior it is to Apollo standing before him, his hand extended.

“Joly believes that you should not be left alone until you are safely within your own rooms. So come. It is only a short walk is it not?”

Grantaire nods, and pushes his chair back and puts more weight through the table than he normally would to be able to stand. Enjolras’ hand hovers at his back but he does not touch, not yet. Once they are outside in the crisp Paris air Enjolras lets his hand rest upon Grantaire’s shoulder as though steering him.

Grantaire does not know how Enjolras knows which streets to take to find the dwelling that Grantaire calls his own, but the idea that Grantaire could keep something from him seems so ridiculous in the late evening light that he does not care.

He thumbs the small tear in his lapel where his cockade had been, he had not taken another from Feuilly and when they arrive at his ramshackle home he invites Enjolras to partake in a nightcap.

There is silence in the street, and Grantaire knows that his words were foolish.

And just as Grantaire is pushing forward and beyond the spread of Enjolras’ palm on his shoulder, Enjolras steps forward with him.

His rooms are small, and Grantaire makes no move towards the bottle of wine by his bedside. Instead he sits heavily on the bed, and the ache of his head has returned.

Enjolras is staring at his face, from his vantage point above him and Grantaire feels the pain of his gaze beyond the impression of Foubert’s fist.

“I think you are not requiring of his friendship for much longer Grantaire.”

It is a command, as opposed to a request and Grantaire can’t help his smile.

“He only does what many wish to. Who am I to deny what the people want?”

Enjolras knits his eyebrows at Grantaire with such pity in his eyes that Grantaire wishes to backtrack his own truth. In the end he acquiesces to Enjolras’ original statement.

“But no, I think that Foubert and I may have taken different paths in life.”

Enjolras sits down on the edge of Grantaire’s bed, their thighs touching and nods sharply.

“I should hope so.”

Enjolras’ eyes are still examining the state of Grantaire’s face, tracking the puffing eyes to the trails of blood down his chin and bleeding into his collar. Despite his jest, Grantaire knows that he has rarely looked worse, at least in Enjolras’ company. He is normally a serene drunk, not an ugly one.

“It wasn’t for your revolution.”

Enjolras nods, as though he had asked a question.

“I didn’t do it for les amis.”

This time Enjolras shakes his head, turning so that he is no longer touching Enjolras, but facing him head on.

The room feels colder.

“I didn’t do anything. I was as ever a passive agent in events beyond my ken.”

And he becomes as passive agent once again, as Enjolras lightly strokes the explosive bruise under his right eye, and then his left.

The kiss is as painful as it is unexpected.

But it is all that Grantaire has ever allowed himself to want. The press of his nose against Enjolras’ brings tears to his eyes. It seems of very little import. In fact it feels sublime to his twisted and bitter soul. It is like the pain of a sunrise on his wine-tired eyes. He could no longer deny Enjolras as he could stop breathing or quit raising the bottle to his lips. He can only hope that Enjolras will think to commemorate him with flowers when he inevitably dies for him.

Then he thinks little of pain, until it is pleasure once again.

When even that has faded Grantaire softens into sleep and sinks back into the ship of darkness, charted for new waters, and with Enjolras at his helm.

**Author's Note:**

> (I have a terrible habit of inflicting pain on my favourite characters, so Les Misérables is like my ideal book in that respect.)
> 
> Edited to spell Enjolras correctly.


End file.
